ASUS G75V Review: Gaming Goes Ivy

Introduction, Design, User Interface

Intel has decided to lead its introduction of Ivy Bridge for mobile with its most powerful quad-core parts. Many of these processors will end up in mainstream laptop, but they’re also great for gaming laptops. In our first look at Ivy Bridge we saw that it holds up well when paired with its own Intel HD 4000 graphics – if you keep the resolution around 1366x768. A bit more than that and the IGP just can’t hang.

Gamers will still want a beefy discrete GPU, and that’s what the G75 offers. Inside this beast you’ll find an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670M. Those who were reading our Kepler coverage will remember that this is not based off Nvidia’s newest architecture but is instead a re-work of an older Fermi chip. That mean seem a bit disappointing, and it is – but the performance of Nvidia’s older mobile chips wasn’t lackluster.

So, this new laptop is packing a spanking-new Core i7-3720QM as well as Nvidia’s new GTX 670M. That’s an impressive combination, and ASUS has wisely backed it up with a well-rounded set of performance components.

Yes, we have multiple hard drives here including a solid state OS drive. There’s also sixteen gigabytes of RAM and a plethora of ports. In the past the G-series laptops we’ve had in for review have always been solidly mid-range gaming laptops with affordable pricing, and I always wondered if ASUS did the majority of its business in that segment because the company was unsure about how it’d stack up against the boutiques.

This new G75, however, is a shot across the bow of Alienware, Origin and Maingear. It has the hardware to go up against laptops in the $2000 range. So has ASUS hit the mark, or is their aim wild?

Design

ASUS certainly doesn’t rest on its laurels when it comes to the design of the G-series. Every new model is redesigned subtly but significantly from the one previous, and this laptop may be the most significant change yet.

The profile makes an immediate impact. Gaming laptops have a reputation for being bulky because, well, they are – but as I’ve mentioned in some earlier articles, the lower power consumption of modern hardware indicates that we may be seeing an end to that era. The G75 is 46mm at its thickest point, down from the 62mm thickness of the G74.

Even these figures are a bit deceptive, however, due to the laptop’s tapered design. It’s 30mm thick at the front, and while that’s quite large compared to an ultrabook it’s enough to make this the second-slimmest dedicated gaming laptop we’ve ever reviewed (behind the Alienware M11x).

While the chassis is different, the major details remain the same as previous models. ASUS has stuck with its black stealth-bomber inspired design. I’ve always found it to be sleek yet masculine, and the slimmer silhouette of this model makes it the most attractive G-series yet. The exhaust vents remain at the back, keeping heat away from the user, and the keyboard is trimmed with the same silver accents found on previous models. If you liked the look of older ASUS gaming laptops, you’ll like this – and vice-versa.

User Interface

Since it is a 17.3” laptop the G75 has plenty of room for a full-sized keyboard with numpad. The keys are large and there’s a massive space between the main keyboard and the numpad. Between that spaces are four directional keys that are kept slightly separate from the other keys. I personally can’t remember the last time I used directional keys in a game, but the attention to detail is nice.

Key feel is average. Most people don’t buy a gaming laptop for the wonderful typing experience, so that’s not a surprise. With that said, most people would have no trouble using the G75 for long bouts of typing – the keys are large, easy to identify by touch and have decent travel.

Backlighting is standard on the G-series. There are four different settings (off and three brightness levels) that can be changed using keyboard function keys, for which I can’t thank ASUS enough. Most keys are evenly lit and the light leakage around the key caps is tolerable.

The touchpad is large and has a different texture from the surrounding surface, which makes it easy to navigate in dark lighting. Large individual left/right buttons are provided, and they offer plenty of key travel. Multi-touch support could be better – it has bouts of over-sensitivity punctuated by moments of unresponsiveness – but overall, this is one of the better touchpads I’ve used on a gaming laptop.

Cool laptop, however I would consider the MSI GT60/70. Recently played on that one, it had dual SSDs which was extremely fast, other then that I was happily surprised about the speakers in it (dyaudio if I remember..)
The keyboard is from steelseries which was a dream typing on, rest of the specs is pretty comparable with the Asus one.

670m? For the price Asus charges? It has the hardware to go up against $2000 machines? Nonsense! Sager/Clevo with a AMD 7970m Will blow this out of the water and is well under $2000. Asus prays on the uninformed and best buy crowd and has been resting on the laurels of the G73jh.

I was wondering also if you can use the G75 for hardcore CAD work like Solid works and CATIA 3D modeling. The processor and ram are more than enough but i am not sure if the Nvidia 670M would handle the extreme CAD work. If this is possible, for the G75 price it will be a real victory on other CAD stations like the HP elite book and the Dell precision, since they both cost a fortune to buy ($3000 and above for a decant configuration). I tried checking if the Nvidia 670M can be replaced by a Nvidia quadro 3000M (which is specially made for CAD work) but they told me the the Nvidia card on the G74/75 is built in the motherboard. I would be glade if anyone who used this laptop for CAD modeling would give us an advise.

I went out and got the lap top.it really wasnt that bad priced. it was only 500 more then my old comp witch was a cheese 700 dollar dell that i got for a quick fix at walmart. and trust me the this is alot better then the dell i had.

as for set up it really didn't take me to get it set up how i want, it got a very user friendly interface. the whole thing just has a really nice feel to it. and grafict are great on it as well.

It nice for long term play, with the dell i could maybe play 1 or hour befre having to shut it off to keep it from over heating (this is with a cooling pad and extra fan on the key bored also) But the Asus G75v i stayed up all night playing every game i owned and hte lap top didnt get hot at all.

It also like said in the review not as big as most gamer laptop. not as heavy (thought it still kinda heave compared to a reg. over the counter laptop) ether witch make it nice since my job makes it so i have to travel alot.

Also another thing i like is it look like it be easy to upgrade if i ever chouse to do so. witch i like because i wont have to buy a whole new laptop in a year or so to play game just do some part upgrades.

so everything about this laptop is great. i think i made a really good chose ingetting this laptop.

I tried this laptop for a few days, it is really nice, but graphic solutions are still far behind desktops, and 1080p on 17 inch means too small fonts and details for me, even with my 20-20 eyesight. A 400$ laptop with amd dual graphics is for me the only cost effective laptop gaming solution

ok so now ive looked up alienware, the price WITHOUT tax for a system equal to Asus is 14500 swedish kr, against Asus G75 12000 WITH Tax!!!!

Yeah Asus suck the money out of people, you gotta be employed by some company.

Only computer that ive found has slightly better price tag on their systems are MSI but, MSI is poorly built and dont have as good cooling systems as Asus have.

And for that 1-3 fps in games for a shorter lifetime, or not the possibility of clocking ur systems i say no thank you.

If you want to buy another system than Asus its ur choice but if you choose sager witch is pricetag higher, than its on you. But dont go around and spousing bshit.
Its a good solid laptop im very pleased and im not gonna pay 1000 dollars for the design mark of Alienware "fuckin joke that they are cheap, idiot".

Don't buy this crap! A couple of years ago we bought an expensive Asus G71 gamer notebook and the screen was defect and went to repair and now it's already too slow for gaming. Now we - unfortunately - have bought this expensive new G75VW, got it today - and it is not it is not working properly! Never Asus again! Obviously Asus do not have sufficient quality control programs.

I'm using the G75 since May now and also use it's "brother" from MSI. As far as I can tell both systems seem rather fine.

Performance of MSI is equal to the ASUS but there are other differences. The cooling of the MSI for instance is much louder and constantly spinning on a higher speed in 3D applications where the cooling in the ASUS turns very slowly. Even after hours of 3D-gaming the ASUS remains quiet. Both laptops stay cold so no difference in that. Keyboard of the ASUS is great, but the MSI steel series keyboard has a nicer key stroke.

Last but not least I work in a computer shop in Belgium for more than 12 years now and from my experience, I know we have ony a few defective asus laptops whithin the warranty period.Defective systems are always picked up the next day and returned within 3 working days. On the other hand we had quite some problems with msi over the past few years, mostly with their cheaper models that is.Also their repair service takes its time. Overall the built quality of both is much better than some of the HP and Packard Bell crap. Those companies really know how to steal people's money. And don't even think about their crappy repair service either.

As for the question if inventor works, we have a client who bought this machine for doing last modifications on the road to their technical drawings in inventor. They say it's not frustrating to work with it. The graphical performance is rather ok, but then again their desktop systems we produced for them in the past are a totally different. Raid array, Quadro FX 5800 video card and Intel Xeon Processor E5-2687 with 20Mb cache. Compare the price tags and you get what you pay for...

just pointing out how wrong this guy is im currently writing on my g75v and it has a 660m not 670m graphics card still awsome a 3610m quad i7 at 2.3 GHz and 12gigs of ram just sayin still a great laptop and i still love mine

i couldnt be happier with mine, i play battlefield 3 on high and WOW on ultra high and it runs smooth for hours. i couldnt afford an alienware but that will be my next laptop. the g75v model is nice and i would recommend it to anyone who wants a laptop unless they have money for a alienware. both of which are nice machines.

I will say that I have mixed feelings about this machine. It does good on playing World of Warcraft and excellent with Star Craft. But often times I have issues with programs crashing, mainly when I try to tell it to do more than one thing at a time. I frequently have to do a hard reboot because the system hangs up and freezes. I only have that problem wen opening multiple programs successively

I did a PC performance test of the subsystems and everything but the hard drive scored an average of 7.5 out of 7.9. The hard drive scored a measly 5.4 which was far below the rest of the system. I think Asus would be better to put a smaller solid state drive such as a 256-512gb. The current standard hard drive is simply too slow and I think is a major cause of the system hanging up so much.

I have yet to see the system take full advantage of the processing power of it's processors, so it's not like the computer can't handle any work load. I think I am going to try a different hard drive and possibly RAM to see if that makes a difference.

I just bought Asus G75vx. This is my second Asus laptop. I also own a K93 (18,4 incher)... As for the G series, I must say it's well worth the money. Ok Alienware laptops are more powerful but they cost almost double. as for the asus g series, it is simply awesome. The build is phenomenal, ruberised finish aluminium, first time you touch it you can actually feel the quality. As for the performance the new i7 core processor is amazing, everything feels so smooth and nice...also the new nvida gpu gtx670mx is great for gaming and as it has Cuda it is also good for adobe apps like Photoshop ( cs 6 can now seriously benefit from your gpu). the only "flaw" is the hard drive, but as g75 has two hdd slots, i can always upgrade it later on with another ssd. also it has a lot of really cool details and features that are simply smart ( filter cleaning, back-lit keyboard and so on). Is it the fastest gaming laptop? Probably not. But the is it an awesome computer? Hell yeah. Btw asus gives you 2 years of warranty, and if your computer comes with a technical flaw, you can replace it for a brand new one for the first 8 days. PS- the sound is a-fucking-mazing!!!

I haven't yet evaluated my new G75VW-DS73 laptop yet, as Asus is in the process of sending it my way as I write this, but I'm hoping it's a big more reliable than my G73SW-3DE (2011) Asus top of the line ROG notebook computer. I just couldn't keep the 3DE *out* of the repair shop, as it traveled North from where I live to Fremont, CA's Asus repair facility and factory center there no less than 7 times in 23 months of use...a total of 116 days of my time with an out of service laptop! The video card system, and its peripheral components kept failing, over and over again in my 3DE, and that was an nVidia 460M 1.5GB DDR5 video board, supposedly one of the most reliable units nVidia ever put into the notebook arena...wrong!

I am glad that Asus finally admitted fault with my LEMON G73SW-3DE laptop, acknowledging only that "parts were not available to repair your computer, so we are offering you a replacement. Please view the specs of the G75VW-DS73 laptop below, and see if it is an appropriate choice for your replacement laptop"....et al.

I look forward to the new G75VW series top of the line laptop, and direly hope and pray that the significant issues my Asus G73SW-3DE was plagued with are simply old news and will not be repeated with this new, replacement laptop. The specs of the new one are fantastic for today's price point of $1799 at Amazon.com, while I paid almost $2000 for the G73 back in 2011, just $20 shy of the big 2K$'s mark to be exact. It appears that my G75SW has all the things mine had, with now 4 USB 3.0 ports, mini-display port+ HDMI on the chassis for multiple monitors vs a VGA or HDMI port on the G73SW.

I've read nothing but great reviews on the new 3rd generation Intel Core i7 notebook lineup of Ivy Bridge CPU's also, so expect the 2.3Ghz CPU to be exemplary for my purposes. The nVidia 670M looks to be a dazzler also, but for its shortcomings with 3D content by relying on nVidia's "N-Vision" setup with Vision II 3D glasses part of the works. 3GB DDR5 256-bit RAM in a laptop can't be a bad thang, now can it?

I do like the 1.5TB capacity HD system, which now legitimately supports RAID 0/1 without any hacks, a welcome change if you need RAID, and I prefer it over a static HD system using the System bus and antiquated AHCI or IDE controllers in the H77 Intel chassis. So that is more good news.

I always install twin high-end SSD's in laptops for speed, speed, speed and more of it if possible! But I'm willing to try the XT-Seagate brand of SSD+HD combination HD and it may prove adequate, the jury is out there just yet. It's all been upgraded vs my G73SW-series laptop, with BT 4.0. a 450Mbps factory BT/WiFi modem combo from Texas Instruments in the G75SW series high-end notebooks, if I can believe what I've read about the new WiFi/BT controller in the G75 series, that is. I can't see why they don't just use the Intel BT/WiFi controller instead, but $$'s talks.

I'll write an addendum to this "early appraisal" of the G75VW-DS73 notebook in a few weeks, after I've had a chance to really put it through its paces in both work and play modes, as right now all I can do is hope for the best. It was somewhat gratifying to read of the good reviews that the G75SW series is getting in this column so that has made my evening's reading a big plus plus deal tonight.

I bought the Asus g75v with GeForce gtx 670m and it didn't come with glasses. I bought some and have found that I can't play anything 3d on the computer screen. Is there any way to make it playable off the computer without having to buy a new computer?